Corruption cannot be eliminated in Iraq, but it can be made less destructive ( AFP/Getty )

Though there is talk of reforming this system, it is politically dangerous to do so because the networks of corruption and patronage established themselves too long ago and involve too many powerful people and parties

Iraqis disagree about many things but on one topic they are united: they believe they live in the most corrupt country in the world, barring a few where there is nothing much to steal. They see themselves as victims of a kleptomaniac state where hundreds of billions of dollars have disappeared into the pockets of the ruling elite over the past 15 years, while everybody else endures shortages of everything from jobs and houses to water and electricity.

The popular rage against the political class that came to power in 2003 explains why the movement led by the populist-nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which demands political and social reform and is allied to the Iraqi Communist Party, topped the poll in the parliamentary election in May. But the low turnout of 44.5 per cent underlined a conviction on the part of many that nothing much is going to change, whatever the makeup of the next government – something still being patched together in snail’s pace negotiations between the parties. “Even friends of mine who did vote are disillusioned and say they will not vote again,” one Baghdad resident told me.

It is impossible to exaggerate the frustration of Iraqis who know they live in a potentially rich country, the second largest oil producer in Opec, but see its wealth being stolen in front of their eyes year after year.

Hend Ali, a mother of six from al-Qaim in Anbar, was displaced in 2015 [Arwa Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]

More than two million people remain displaced inside Iraq since January 2014, the UNHCR refugee agency says.

​Baghdad, Iraq - For Hend Ali, there was no other option but to stay put.

The 36-year-old mother of six has been living for three years now at al-Khadra, a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) tucked behind blocks of dilapidated apartment buildings in Iraq's capital, Baghdad.

Like many others across the country, Hend was forced to flee her home in 2015 as military operations and ISIL attacks escalated after the armed group's fighters swept through Iraq, occupying one-third of its territory.

​Prominent Iraqi human rights activist Jabbar Abdul Karim Bahadli, famous for defending the rights of wrongfully convicted protesters and activists, was assassinated early on Monday by unknown assailants in Al-Hadi district of Basra Province. The killing was verified by Qasim Al-Otaibi, president of Basra’s Bar Association, after he expressed his condolences on social media several hours after the attack. Local press agencies reported that Bahadli was hit by as many as 15 bullets when his vehicle was ambushed. “Words cannot do justice to your loss,” his colleague Otaibi wrote on his personal Facebook page.

The latest uprisings that began in Basra before boiling over into surrounding southern provinces in Dhi Qar, Muthanna, Karbala and Maysan, have been met with increasing violence and disdain from state forces, as the latest assassination shows. The frustrations produced by fifteen years of poor electricity services, recurrent power outages, rising poverty, bleak employment prospects, uncontrollable levels of water salinity, the outsourcing of the local oil and gas industry, and blatant corruption, have fuelled demands for a dignified life away from the depraved existence for which the incumbent elite is held responsible.

The myth of support continues to be parroted by the presiding caretaker government whose mandate expired last month, as well as by US officials protected inside the walls of the heavily fortified US Embassy complex situated in the heart of Baghdad. At a US State Department press briefing last Wednesday, deputy spokeswoman Heather Nauert iterated America’s support. When asked about the response seen from Iraqi officials, Nauert said unconvincingly that the state’s responsibility is to protect the rights of those it governs and to maintain the security of public and private property. “They [the government in Baghdad],” she added, “have expressed an intent to do more to address protesters’ grievances.” Little more than rhetoric has been presented at this stage, though, including pledges from neighbouring Kuwait to supply Iraq with 30, 000 cubic metres of diesel to boost the electricity sector.

Such claims are always accompanied by denouncements of protester violence or warnings of expected violence, after 19 buildings and government installations were stormed and torched by demonstrators. However, this rhetoric is rarely reciprocated in cases when Iraqi state actors and security personnel are responsible for the violence.

​Iraq’s security forces fired on and beat protesters in Basra governorate during a series of protests from July 8 to 17, 2018, Human Rights Watch said today. The largely Interior Ministry forces used apparent excessive and unnecessary lethal force against protests over water, jobs, and electrical power that at times turned violent. At least three demonstrators were killed and at least 47 wounded, including two children who were shot and one who was beaten with rifle butts.

Human Rights Watch investigated eight protests, in six of which security forces allegedly fired live ammunition, wounding at least seven protesters. They also threw rocks and beat at least 47 people, including 29 during or after arrest. Witnesses said that in five protests, demonstrators threw rocks, gasoline bombs, and burning tires at the security forces. Since July 14, authorities have severely limited internet access across much of central and southern Iraq.​

​“The Iraqi authorities need to credibly and impartially investigate the apparent excessive use of lethal force in Basra, even where protests turned violent,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “So long as the government fails to address protester grievances, the danger of further bloody protests remains real.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 13 people on July 18 and 19 who said they participated in the Basra protests, including three activists, four relatives of two seriously injured protesters, three journalists, and Jabar al-Saidi, the security committee chief of the Basra Provincial Council.

Since July 8, 2018, citizens in the city of Basra have emerged in peaceful protests demanding that the Iraqi government improve services, provide jobs and dismiss the corrupt from their positions in government.

These demonstrations continue and have expanded into other cities in the southern provinces and in some areas of the province of Baghdad. All of these protests were peaceful and citizens demanded legitimate demands guaranteed by the Iraqi constitution and international laws.

Most of those who took part in the demonstrations were young and unemployed. In addition daily labourers and the poor joined in, which resulted in the Iraqi government using excessive force to confront demonstrators without any justification.

Demonstrations continued between July 16 and Friday (July 20th) and included large areas of central and southern Iraq.

Iraq’s National Security Service (NSS), an Iraqi intelligence agency reporting to Iraq’s prime minister, has acknowledged for the first time that it is detaining individuals for prolonged periods of time, despite not having a clear mandate to do so, Human Rights Watch said today. NSS is holding more than 400 detainees in a detention facility in east Mosul. As of July 4, 2018, 427 men were there, some of whom had been held for more than seven months.

One person held there briefly in April described horrendous conditions, and said that detainees had no access to lawyers, family visits, or medical care. He described one prisoner dying in April after being tortured for months. Human Rights Watch was granted access to the facility on July 4. The detention conditions appeared improved but remained overcrowded.

“National Security Service officials in Baghdad told us that the intelligence agency has no authority to hold prisoners, but changed their line once we were able to see the prisoners for ourselves,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Baghdad needs to publicly clarify which authorities have the right to hold and interrogate detainees.”​On April 17 a senior NSS official in Baghdad denied operating any detention facilities and claimed that the agency only holds small numbers of people for up to 48 hours before transferring them to places of formal detention. But researchers were granted access to the facility, where officials said 427 prisoners were being held at the time. A subsequent written response from the Baghdad office confirmed the NSS is holding prisoners in one facility in Mosul, but then proceeded to speak about detention facilities in the plural form. Given the serious contradiction in statements and facts on the ground, the NSS should clarify the number of prisoners it is detaining and the number and location of facilities it is using to detain them. Iraqi authorities should declare the number of detention facilities across Iraq. Judicial authorities should investigate the allegations presented in this report.

Peaceful protesters in southern Iraq and Baghdad fear authorities are deliberately disabling internet access before security forces attack and open fire on them, Amnesty International has learned.

Trusted sources told the organization they believe internet access is being cut off to prevent them sharing footage and pictures of the excessive and unnecessary force used by security forces, including the use of live ammunition, in cities in the southern governorates of the country, especially Basra.

“We are closely monitoring the escalating situation across southern Iraq and are extremely worried by reports that security forces are beating, arbitrarily detaining and even opening fire on peaceful protesters,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.​“Deliberately disabling the internet is a sinister restriction to the right to freedom of expression and strongly indicates that the authorities have something to hide. We fear this blackout is deliberately designed to give carte blanche to the security forces to repress peaceful activists without being recorded and held accountable.”

One year ago, Iraqi prime minister Haider al Abadi declared that the Isis extremist group had been defeated in Mosul, one of Iraq’s most historically important and populated cities.

Dressed in military fatigues and surrounded by his top brass, the Iraqi leader grandiosely declared on state television that the nine-month battle that had seen some of the deadliest and most destructive urban warfare since the Second World War had finally come to an end.

“From here, from the heart of free and liberated Mosul, by the sacrifices of the Iraqis from all the governorates, we announce the awaited victory to all of Iraq, and the Iraqis,” Abadi said, as plumes of acrid black smoke and the smell of death arose from the smouldering ruins of Mosul into the skies above him.​In scenes reminiscent of footage of Stalingrad after the Nazis were defeated in 1943, Mosul, Iraq’s second city, was left a shattered and devastated population centre. The city was almost completely destroyed in the fighting between Isis and federal government forces, supported by Iran-backed Shia Islamist militants and the full might of the US-led coalition’s air forces.

The US’ controversial Human Terrain System (HTS), which embedded social scientists with soldiers in Middle Eastern warzones, is in the process of being resuscitated after being scrapped following a series of scandals.​This time, however, social scientists are being swapped with refugees fleeing US-created terror in the region, according to increasingly widespread reports within the vulnerable population.